Margaret and Syl are getting married. Alas for Margaret, who views her impending union with the odious Syl in the same way a ship must view a shipwreck. Alas for Mrs. Monro, Syl's mother, who harbours severe doubts about the entire male gender -- not least of all her son. Alas for Lili, the high-spirited temptress who is willing to do anything to prevent this disastrous misalliance, even if that means sacrificing herself. And hooray for The Summerhouse Trilogy, which follows the ominous weeks before Margaret's wedding through the eyes of these three highly biased narrators. Fizzing with wit and the rueful wisdom of women who have seen -- and borne -- every species of masculine misbahaviour, this delectable and unexpectedly serious comedy was the inspiration for an acclaimed BBC TV film.
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Editorial Reviews
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'Her dry ironic style is as English as Jane Austen and as fortifying as a glass of brandy' Daily Mail for The Birds of the Air 'Unputdownable' Spectator 'Every page of this wry, edgy novel bristles with delights' Sebastian Faulks.
About the Author
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Alice Thomas Ellis was born in Liverpool and worked for some years as fiction editor at Duckworth. Her 'Home Life' column in The Spectator (1985-9) was justly famous. Winner of many other awards, Ellis was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1982.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"The honeymoon will soon put the roses back in her cheeks.",
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This review is from: Summerhouse Trilogy (Paperback)
Alice Thomas Ellis skewers the attitudes and expectations which her characters bring to love and marriage, both as they live their own lives and as they judge the lives of others. But she is also an understanding author, recognizing that their foibles and limitations stem from their upbringing and experience, as they muddle along as best they can, aided by each other, and sometimes the church. This three-part novel concerns the imminent marriage of twenty-year-old Margaret to Syl, a man in his forties, and is told through three points of view: Margaret, who does not love Syl but intends to go through with the wedding; Syl's mother, the sensible Mrs. Monro, who, abandoned by her husband, does not want the marriage to take place; and Lili, a friend of Margaret's mother from school in Egypt, who arrives in a whirlwind, determined to upset the status quo.
From Margaret we learn of her passionate first love and a shocking death that have occurred during the year she spent away at school in Egypt. Devoutly religious, Margaret is torn between the concepts of romantic and religious love, and she cannot seem to reconcile the church's teachings regarding love, sex, sin, and death. Mrs. Monro, an elderly lady for whom death is very real, if not imminent, is hiding secrets associated with her own past love life. For her, too, love is associated with death and God, though in ways vastly different from Margaret's experience. Into this mix comes Lili, half Egyptian, half English, a free spirit unconcerned with traditional, churchly definitions of sin, and sexually liberated in her own life. Lili is determined to save Margaret from the "pointless secular martyrdom" of marriage. A sensitive, philosophical exploration of love and sex, God and sin, and life and death, the novel is also an examination of the compromises people make, willingly or unwillingly, in order to find happiness during their lives and loves. Sparkling dialogue and thoughtful interior monologues reveal the sadness, loneliness, and confusion within many of the characters, while Ellis's sense of irony and ability to create absurd scenes lift the mood with cathartic comedy. Gently satirical and full of wise observations, this is an insightful and thoroughly entertaining study of several characters, interconnected by love and marriage, as they try to "muddle through." Mary Whipple
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Summerhouse book,
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This review is from: Summerhouse Trilogy (Paperback)
I read this after seeing the movie. I like the 3 women's perspective on the same events. Very interesting story of a young woman who wants to be a nun, but seems helpless to escape a marriage to an older, un-likeable neighbor. Fortunately, it's a commedy so the ending is happy.
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